


Tomorrow (Comes a Day too Soon)

by Hedgi



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, all aboard the pain train, no one stopped me but I should be stopped, post White Knights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 00:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5986677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedgi/pseuds/Hedgi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post "White Knights"<br/>Martin Stein sits alone in a cage. He knows what the next day will bring. He has been here before, has seen this choice. He knows what will happen down either road, silence or speech.<br/>That does not make it any easier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow (Comes a Day too Soon)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a song by the Flogging Mollys, which I heard by the Browne Sisters and George Cavanagh. lyrics seem appropriate for this show.

The darkness was not complete, but that only made everything seem that much more close, terrifying. Martin hung his head, still sitting on the hard slat of a bed. If he reached out both hands, he could brush the edges of the cell bars easily. Cell was putting it mildly, really. This was a cage in a line of cages, so much empty space that had once been filled.

  
And would be again, he had no doubt, if rescue didn’t come. He hadn’t seen where they had taken Ro-- Mick or Pal-- Ray, but he hadn’t expected to. They were leverage, the commander had made that clear. Tomorrow, whenever that came in this dark place, he would be interrogated, there was no question of that. These people wanted the secrets of Firestorm, and they had already killed so many. The memory of rows of bodies laid out under sheets flamed in his mind, jarring and terrible. He had done this, inadvertent as it had been. If he had not taken his research with him to STAR Labs--what then? He might have died. Ronald might have died. But there would have been no Firestorm to be seen in 1975, no reason for the bodies, no reason for what would happen tomorrow. Tomorrow could not be more than hours away, and exhaustion weighed on his limbs like lead.  Tomorrow, they would return for him and if he remained silent, his allies would pay the price.

  
Even after he and Jefferson had stabilized, he had still run warm, and was glad of it now, alone in this cold, dark cage. He felt more than a little like an animal, waiting for slaughter, but--that was wrong. It would not be his blood that spilled if he kept his secrets. His throat felt sandpaper dry, familiar weakness in his hands and legs. He should have told Pa--Ray and Ror--Mick to run. He was an old man, after all. He could bear the cost of his own silence if the only cost was his own life. But it wasn’t. How could he condemn two men, his allies if not his friends, but yes, his friends, to slow suffering? Or else-- how could he be the key to Savage winning? If the Soviets and Savage achieved what he had, it would be infinitely worse than if General Eiling had. There had been no mercy in that uniformed man, either, but at least he had not been funded by Savage, and the Flash had been able to broker a truce. Somehow, Martin doubted these men, these monsters, would do the same. Savage would never stop with just their lives. He would take life after life and light after light. Martin trembled. This was not the first time he had faced his own mortality, weighed his own life and that of an ally, a friend, against hundreds, thousands, Clarissa.

Familiar words sat on his tongue, tasting of copper, “I would rather die than see my life’s work perverted--” and the response, “You will die, Professor. How soon I let that happen--” mixed with the harshness of “ they are alive, whether or not they remain that way--” and the double voiced “Up to you.”

It was a terrible choice, and there was no victory to be found, not then, not now. They would all die, Savage would see to it. The only difference would be how soon, and how many others died as well. In the darkness, filled only with the shadows of bars and the sound of his own breathing, Martin glanced down at his arms, the faint edges of a scar visible below the rumpled cuff of his sleeve.

_WHERE?_

It was nothing like the scars his grandparents bore on their own arms, or his mother, but the crude mark had stayed and stayed, even after the cut had healed from Ronald’s flesh. Even after the link had been severed forever, the connection in their minds shattered in a burst of flame like the sun, like a phoenix turning to ash. In many ways, it was all that remained. Martin had no doubt that it had saved his life, giving him the power to communicate a location, giving the Flash a place to run too. There was no Flash here, in this time, in this place. The only rescue that might come would by the others, the would-be legends. And Savage at least would be waiting for them, probably already formulating a trap. They would die, and any hope for the world, for their loved ones, with them.  


He and Jeffer--Jax had not tested the strength of the physical connection, only the mental bond that lingers, telegraphing emotions but little else. Still, Martin knew he had to try, to echo Ronald’s words. Ronnie’s final words, the last that he spoke with his own voice, his own throat and thoughts. Slowly, he reached for the metal frame of the bed. The pressure would not be the same as a biting into his wrist, but he hoped Jax might still feel it, that one of those left might understand. He tapped, his wedding band clicking softly. The young man, no more than a child really, had every right to be angry. Still, his heart boulder-heavy, he hoped that this message at least he would listen to.

His breathing slowed, shuddering as it had nearly a year prior, chained to a chair. The others would come, he knew that for fact. If only out of a sense of duty, Sna--Leonard to Mick. If only because Hunter could not risk the things he knew falling into enemy hands. He longed for the easy hope of youth, certainty that rescue would result in just that, but the only certainty he had lodged like stone under his breastbone, like a remembrance upon a grave. He could not save himself. He could not save Ray or Mick. He could not give their captors the means to reduce a world to flame and smoke centuries before it would have fallen. He could not let the others walk to their own deaths.

D-O-N-T-C-O-M-E. T-R-A-P. D-O-N-T-C-O-M-E. T-R-A-P. D-O-N-T-C-O-M-E.T-R-A-P.

Jax at least, had to live to return to his mother, Sara to her sister and Leonard to his own. It was only fair, only right. He kept the pattern up until the lights flickered to brightness, the shadows growing sharper. Martin closed his eyes against the light, the signal of a dawn that some part of him had hoped, prayed, would not come.

  
There was a rattling at the door, keys in a lock. _I am so sorry, my friends. I am so sorry, Clarissa. I never said goodbye._

**Author's Note:**

> My poor grumpy teddybear.
> 
> See y'all in hell.


End file.
